


Prompt: Ave in perpetuum frater.

by EssayOfThoughts



Series: MCU Maximoff Oneshots [11]
Category: In the Flesh (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - In The Flesh, Codependency, Gen, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 19:04:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5467649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wanda mourns when her brother dies, but doesn’t know what more to do. They have always had each other, were born together, but he was killed by a maniac with a gun and so she continues on alone. She goes, each day, to his grave (<i>Pietro Maximoff, 1990-2009,</i> in perpetuum frater ave atque vale) and waits and watches. </p><p>Please, she prays. Please come back, Pietro.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prompt: Ave in perpetuum frater.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt, readable at my tumblr [Here](http://essayofthoughts.tumblr.com/post/135540916525/sorry-for-sending-a-tricky-prompt-homestuck-is). Comments are ever appreciated.

**i.**  
Wanda mourns when her brother dies, but doesn’t know what more to do. They have always had each other, were born together, but he was killed by a maniac with a gun and so she continues on alone. She goes, each day, to his grave ( _Pietro Maximoff, 1990-2009,_ in perpetuum frater ave atque vale) and waits and watches. 

 _Please_ , she prays.  _Please come back, Pietro._

Some days it is raining, some days it is not, and some days she falls half-asleep at the foot of her brother’s grave. Even at home their foster parents think it is far too much for her to grieve her brother so strongly, but she cannot make herself care at all with her brother in the ground.

 

* * *

 

 **ii.  
** She is dozing by the foot of his grave late on the 19th of December. It is freezing cold, and there is a touch of snow. Darkness is gathering and Wanda looks towards the lights at the gate. She sighs and rises and walks back home. 

Her dreams that night are confused, and only made worse when she goes to her brother’s grave the next day to find it torn up and empty.

 

* * *

 

 **iii.**  
ROTTERS scream the wild ones, ZOMBIES scream the net.  _Pietro_  thinks Wanda, and starts to search. She takes a shovel from the shed and a coil of synthetic rope and heads back to the graveyard to  _look_.

_Brother-mine, brother-mine, where did you **go?**_

She finds his footprints and follows them to the woods. It is harder through the woods, but she finds black-stained drips on leaves and follows them to the field just outside of town.

There is a sheep, it’s skull cracked open, and  _her brother_  crouched by it, sucking out the brains.

 

* * *

 

 **iv.**  
She is too stunned to move at first, but is silent.  _Oh, Pietro_ , she thinks and does not move. Her brother is not paying attention to anything but the brains before him. Mud is matted in his hair, and his skin looks almost grey-green and it is  _him_.

Wanda remembers what the news reports have said. That the Risen do not recognise people, only attack. That the Risen can kill and will kill and are dangerous. The the Government wants specimens to examine, and, hopefully, cure. 

Wanda does not know if they can cure this, but knows that she will do anything to have her brother back.

She steps out from behind the trees and bushes and calls, “Pietro?”

 

* * *

 

 **v.**  
She manages to knock him out and tie him but does not know where to go next. Back to town? The trains are running yet, but she doesn’t know if she’d be allowed on hauling her un-deceased brother with her. To the police, or to the fire brigade down by the river? Or to the outpost set up outside the post office? She decides the lattermost and starts walking, half-carrying her brother beside her.

 

* * *

 

 **vi.**  
The streets clear before her and her brother stirs as she goes to knock on the door. People shift uncertainly in the street, and,  _finally_  the door swings open. Wanda almost smiles at the man’s stunned face.

“I’ve caught one,” she says. “I’ve caught my brother. I want to contact that government number for captured Risen.”

 

* * *

 

 **vii.**  
The number doesn’t go through immediately, but rings clearly on the second go. Pietro has been retied into a chair, legs bound, arms bound, body bound, pale eyes watching everything with an eerie empty intensity. The number goes through and Wanda is almost tripping over herself to speak before the woman at the other end.

“I’m Wanda, Wanda Maximoff, in Mistley, Essex. I caught a Risen, my brother.”

The lady sounds almost surprised at the rush of information. “Well,” she says slowly. “As I’m sure you know there is a reward for uninjured Risen being turned in to the government, and that we mean to study them in order to treat them. If you give me your current address we will send a response team to pick up the Risen-”

“My  _brother_ ,” Wanda interrupts, and she refuses to give in on this. “I’m outside Mistley Post Office, at the outpost you set up on the old turn off to the quay. I’ll hand him over, but I want to come too.”

The woman sputters, “I’m sorry, what-”

“I want to go with my brother. I want to help with the studies.”

“I-I-”

Wanda pauses, sighs, scrubs a hand over her face. “Get your superior,” she says, gentler. “But I want to help my brother, so I want to go with him to where ever you mean to take him.”

There is silence from the other end for long minutes and then a soft clatter.

“Hello?” The woman says.

Wanda breathes out. “I’m still here.”

“They say yes. The team will be with you in a matter of hours. If the Risen-”

“My  _brother_.”

“If your brother is correctly restrained we advise you pack what you wish to take with you and wait with him.”

A wave of relief rushes through Wanda. “ _Thank you_ ,” she says, and means it entirely. “Thank you so much.”

 

* * *

 

 **viii.**  
The team that arrives is gruff and almost brutal, and Wanda frowns at them cautiously manhandling Pietro into the back of the truck. She sighs, throws her bag in, and takes Pietro’s tied arm. 

“Let me,” she says, and tugs her brother forward. His eyes, so pale, so inhuman, watch her closely, and she watches back. “Come on,” she says softly. “Come on in. It’s going to be alright.”

It is not too difficult to get her brother into the truck and settled on a seat. She quickly ties him to the round bar behind him, and makes sure he is as secure as she can make him before sitting beside him. 

“He’s safe,” she says to the team, and they get going.

 

* * *

 

 **ix.**  
They go all the way to Norfolk, and Wanda watches the empty fens stretching out and out and out behind the truck. It’s so flat she can see for what she is almost certain is miles, and it is easy to pick out the shambling form of Risen against the cloudy sky.

 

* * *

 

 **x.**  
They give her a room at the facility, not far from the orderlies, and give her a run down of what they expect her to do if she wants to stay and keep an eye on her brother. Wanda makes a mental list and gets into uniform. At the end of her tour around the space she will be working in she finally asks, “When will I be allowed to see my brother?”

The doctor blinks. “Your… brother. Risen #221209-2?”

“Pietro,” Wanda says. “Pietro Maximoff. My brother.”

The doctor checks a chart and nods. “You will be able to see Risen #221209-2 on your rounds, though we advise you have other orderlies to help you restrain it before trying to interact.”

 

* * *

 

 **xi.**  
Wanda checks on her brother every chance she gets. As soon as her jobs are done she goes to check on him in the cell with the others, goes to ensure he hasn’t been hurt, that he is well. He doesn’t seem to recognise her, no matter how many times she visits, but she will not give up.

 

* * *

 

 **xii.**  
Wanda spends her evening reading science books in the chamber off the cell in the evenings, and trying to understand how her brother seems to  _live_. The doctors refuse to explain anything - or, Wanda thinks, they  _can’t_  - so she is left to study it herself and try to comprehend the reasoning the world has used to resurrect a years worth of the dead.

 

* * *

 

 **xiii.**  
It is not until early 2012 that a treatment finally works - the doctors call it Neurotriptyline and Wanda thinks the name sounds pompous - and she is told her brother has been moved to a new cell, a separate cell, and that he has started to pick up words.

Wanda has to stop herself chewing her thumbnail down to a stub as she paces outside it. Eventually she knocks, and opens it. There are no other orderlies around, and she knows, if her brother is being treated and that it is working, he will not hurt her.

“Pietro?” she says, softly, and from the bedroll in the corner her brother turns. He looks less green now, more grey, with dark veins sluggish under his skin. His eyes still have that strange blank intensity, but she sees him blink at her.

“Wan-da,” he says and she cannot help but smile. 

“It’s me,” she says. “I’m here.”

Her brother’s mouth works, but no words come out. Wanda stretches out a careful hand. “Are you alright?”

He nods and stretches one hand out towards her. His skin is cold against hers, and there is no pulse still when she touches fingertips to his pulsepoint. 

“What do you remember?”

Pietro tilts his head, shrugs. “Words,” he says, slowly, almost tasting it as he speaks. “Some. Words.” He pauses, tries to find the words, frowns and makes a face and tries again. “ _Fuck_ ,” he says emphatically, “Fuck words.” And then, “Difficult.”

Wanda smiles slightly, squeezes his hand. Pietro doesn’t react. “How well can you think?” 

Pietro pauses, tilts his head, finds the words. “Well,” he says. “Well enough.”

 

* * *

 

 **xiv.**  
Wanda visits every day she can, and listens as his words return. One day he almost lunges for her, and for a moment, just a moment she is scared, before his arms wrap around her in a hug. Wanda sighs, relaxes, hugs him back, and tries to keep back tears.

“I’ve missed you,” she says. “I’ve missed you so much.”

 

* * *

 

 **xv.**  
When her brother is finally allowed out, allowed home, Wanda is glowingly pleased. Even as she signs Non-Disclosure forms in triplicate, promising not to reveal what she witnessed at the treatment centre, she is smiling, humming, and one hand holds her brother’s in a comforting reminder.

“Everything is going to be alright now,” she promises Pietro as their foster parents come to pick them up, and she feels the comforting weight of her brother’s head on her shoulder.

 

* * *

 

 **xvi.**  
The first night Pietro has nightmares. Wanda goes through to his room and sits with him and wishes she could offer him a glass of water or  _something_ , but PDS can’t eat or drink like the Living can. Wanda sits beside him and holds his hand as tight as possible so he can feel it and offers to listen if he wants to talk.

Pietro shakes his head and holds her hand tighter.

 

* * *

 

 **xvii.**  
That first night they fall asleep curled around each other on Pietro’s bed, and when Wanda asks in the morning he promises he had no more nightmares. She gives him his dose of Neurotriptyline, and eats quickly, refusing to make a comment on the difference. Her brother is PDS now, and she is still Living, but they are  _twins_  and nothing will change that.

It is with a shambling speed Pietro follows her through town, down to the market. He helps her pick out the foods she likes, even knowing he cannot eat himself, and the things in the fosters’ list. A few people eye him warily, and Wanda watches them back until they drop the stares.

When they arrive home and drop off the groceries Wanda offers to walk with Pietro through the woods, or take him into town, or even just in to the library. 

“Anything,” she offers. Pietro’s smile is gentle, and they walk through the woods, Wanda catching Pietro at every pothole.

 

* * *

 

 **xviii.**  
It is not until early 2014 they truly hear anything about the murmured rumours of a Second Rising. Across the country, they hear, PDS are becoming Living again. Wanda has known of Pietro’s shakes and tremors and his headaches, and how he has begun to feel again, feel properly since they started, but they had worried it was the Neurotriptyline failing.

That he might Live again is a new kind of hope and joy, and one that makes them both smile with it.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> \- The quote on Pietro's grave is from [Catullus 101](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_101) and translates to "forever, brother, hail and farewell". I bastardised it slightly for the fic title, making it approximately "forever, my brother, hail"  
> \- In The Flesh has the Zombie rising occurring in 2009, and only of those who died in that year.  
> \- I've moved this to Britain because:  
> A) I know Britain better as I live here and  
> B) In The Flesh is set in Britain and so I know more of the systems set up in ITF’s Britain.  
> \- The number I picked for Pietro has nothing to do with Magneto’s number in comics, it’s in fact the date it would have been when Wanda brought Pietro in, plus an additional number to indicate which he was that day, as either of the numbers given in comics would be too much at that point of the ITF timeline.  
> \- [This](https://docs.google.com/document/d/14rKRt9VIXs9U5uau840DoXB2UKw_szsz362NzNr8Mlw/edit) is the ITF timeline I used.  
> \- Because the series ended and Amy seemed to [SPOILER] have become Living again, I've decided the Second Rising _did_ happen, in that PDS sufferers began to become human as (possibly) hinted at by Kieran's symptoms. Amy died towards the end of 2013, hence 2014 for the time it becomes noticed.
> 
> \- As said above, comments are ever appreciated!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Prompt: So Spake the Dead.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5765341) by [EssayOfThoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts)




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